Exposure and White Balance
Targets

EzyBalance, XpoBalance and
TriBalance

These three products are produced by Lastolite,
and their functions overlap.

EzyBalance is a collapsible
replacement for an 18% grey card with a white reflector on the reverse side.
It is produced in three sizes 12, 20 and 30 inches. The 12 inch version is
convenient, in that when it is folded down in its case it is
pocket sized, under 6 inches across.

XpoBalance is a collapsible target with
three sections on each side. On one side you have black, white and 18% grey and on the other 18% grey and grey shades representing one stop over and one
stop under. Triangular with rounded off corners it's just under 15 inches
across. Folded down in its case it's just over 6.5 inches across.

TriBalance is a triangular silver
reflector, with 3 patches, black, white and 18% grey on the reverse. It is
the same size and shape as the Lastolite Trigrip reflector range being 30 inches
in its longest direction.

Exposure - use the 18 % grey with spot
meter on your camera to get the equivalent to an incident light reading with
handheld metre, this is where a metre is used with a diffuser intercone to
measure the light falling on rather than reflected from a subject. You can
also use it with spot or centre weighted metering to get a good reading in many
situations. The other two grey scales, where present, allow the equivalent of
a stop under and over exposure. Using the darker grey makes the image
lighter and the lighter grey makes the image darker.

Using these for white balancing the
camera. The 18% grey is used as a target when setting PRE. The use of
PRE, white balance and more can be reached from the links at the bottom of
this page.

Post capture (in editing) exposure and
colour balancing

You take an image with the 18% grey target in
the shot, and with the camera set the same, then go on and take a series of
photos. In editing in Photoshop, Capture NX2 or some other package you use
the levels or curves adjustment option and use the grey dropper to set the
grey point to the 18% grey on your target image. You then save this change
as a new action in Photoshop or select the change in the edit list and uses
the batch 'save to file' or 'clipboard' options on Capture NX2. You can then
apply this action in Photoshop or use batch changes in Capture NX2 to apply
this change across the remainder of the images taken in the series.

Instead you can take an image of the black,
white and 18% grey version, and continue as above using the black, white and grey
droppers.

The advantage of this technique is that you
can edit a batch very quickly allowing proofs to be produced without a lot
of individual editing. So with a wedding, if the colour balance was set with
PRE, and then the post capture method used to set colour, and contrast, you
can see proofs can be available at the wedding reception, using a
laptop and a printer to print them out.

Please note

These techniques can greatly speed up the work
flow and do work reliably as long as nothing changes, i.e. light, colour, or
brightness, but you should experiment with all of these effects before
using them in a live situation, as you will find that when using the
different grey colours in particular you may have slightly different colours.
Some also like to add to the batch process a slight warming and a small
amount of sharpening, and all of this can be done in one operation across the
pictures in the series. I would always suggest that you back up the
originals unaltered. As long as you still have them on your card you can do
this later if you are in a hurry to produce results to show people.

Exposure
MasterclassTraining course.
run by Photography Skills. The object is to be able to manage
exposure in just about any situation, coping with challenging situations and
extremes, as well as being in creative control at all times. This, like several
others, may at first seam like a simple subject but is an interesting and
exciting range of knowledge and skills that allows you not only to get the right
exposure in more situations but to understand why problems arise and how to
overcome them. You take away with you both the understanding and skills as well
as an exposure aid that is exclusively produced for clients of Camera
Images and Photography Skills.

Camera Images ‘Short’ 3 hour course that can be taken on its own or combined
with others on
Exposure Control and Graduated Filters, and we have also covered a little on this. In under
half the time, the same ground cannot be covered as in the Masterclass but the
basics and areas that are either of most interest or most relevant to your
photographic interests can be covered.

Filters-ND graduated filters
- the most essential filters, looking at hard, soft, reverse, strengths
and how to decide what to use, setting exposure and more.